Ruby/SDL is the ruby extension library to use SDL. SDL(Simple DirectMedia Layer) is a cross-platform multimedia library
designed to provide fast access to the graphics framebuffer and audio
devices. See http://www.libsdl.org/ if you want to know SDL in detail.

This library supports Linux, Win32, MacOS X.

This library perhaps works on FreeBSD and other standard Unix-like systems.

Ruby/SDL needs Ruby and SDL and optionally uses SDL_image, SDL_mixer, SDL_ttf, SGE, OpenGL and SMPEG.

Indispensable

• Ruby http://www.ruby-lang.org/
• SDL http://www.libsdl.org/

Optional

• SDL_mixer http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_mixer/index.html
• SDL_ttf http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_ttf/index.html
• SDL_image http://www.libsdl.org/projects/SDL_image/index.html
• SGE http://www.etek.chalmers.se/~e8cal1/sge/
• SMPEG http://www.icculus.org/smpeg/
• SDLSKK http://www.kmc.gr.jp/~ohai/sdlskk.en.html

Some packages are available: Debian's .deb, FreeBSD's ports, or Windows' zipfile.

RubyGems are also available. You can install Ruby/SDL:

gem install rubysdl

You can install from source code as follows:

1. install Ruby : See Ruby's document and install.

2. install SDL : Extract SDL's source and run ./configure. And run make, make install.

3. install SGE : Run make and make install.

4. install SDL_mixer, SDL_ttf, SDL_image, SMPEG and SDLSKK : See documents of these libraries and install them .

5. install this extension library,Ruby/SDL : Run ruby extconf.rb, make and make install.

6. (Mac OS X user only) install rsdl : Run gem install rsdl. rsdl is a wrapper of the Ruby interpreter. This wrapper prepares Cocoa framework before running the interpreter.

You can use SGE without intalling:

gem install rubysdl -- --enable-bundled-sge

or

ruby extconf.rb --enable-bundled-sge

However, please do not use this option if you have other way. Please install SGE separately if possible.

Write require 'sdl' in your Ruby script. If your system is OS X, you must use rsdl command as an interpreter instead of ruby command.

See following documents and samples if you want to know the detail.

• sample/*.rb : Ruby/SDL samples. In some scripts, you have to prepare data such as sample.wav and sample.mpg.
• rubysdl_ref.en.html : The reference manual
• rubysdl_ref.en.rd : RD style reference manual(the contents is same as rubysdl_ref.en.html)
• documents of SDL : This is in SDL archive. Please read this when you want to know what does't describe these documents.

You can use OpenGL with this library.

1. Setup OpenGL and SDL.
2. Install ruby-opengl (http://ruby-opengl.rubyforge.org/)
3. Run ruby extconf.rb, make, and make install
4. Write require 'sdl'; require 'opengl' in your script.

We use OpenGL through ruby-opengl. Please see SDL's document, OpenGL document and sample/testgl.rb .

This library is distributed under GNU LGPL version 2.1 or later, which can be found in the file LICENSE. But samples, the Ruby scripts sample/*.rb, are not under LGPL, and you can use their files freely.

Thanks to ...

• Tamura : some patches and advertising
• Akinori MUSHA : Porting on FreeBSD
• Danny van Bruggen : some ideas are from his library "RUDL"
• akira yamada : patch of SDL::TTF, making packages of Vine and Debian.
• Wayne Conrad : some patches
• Christian Neukirchen, Kent Dahl : send a patch
• Keffin Barnaby : some patches
• Rorien Dunn, Dennis Ranke, Keita Urashima : bug reports and useful information
• Yusuke TABATA : introduce me into SDL world
• SDLdoc Japanese translation project : base of Ruby/SDL's reference manual
• Hara Yutaka: Sample TrueTypeFont, MacOS X support
• Members of #sdl-fan-jp @ FriendChat: bug reports and advices
• Cyross Makoto: Windows support
• Dwayne C. Litzenberger: Some patches

Some functions, especially SDL::MPEG methods and pallete handling methods, are not tested.

• Ippei Obayashi: main developer
• Cyross Makoto: Windows suppport
• yhara: MacOS X support

Please send comments and bug reports to the author. Author's mail address: ohai@kmc.gr.jp